The first indie console

In 1997, Sony made a new console available, the Net Yaroze console. A Net Yaroze console purchase included an Software Development Kit (SDK), a cable to connect it to your PC and some documentation. You would also have access to an online community of other Net Yaroze programmers. No other console manufacturer had offered such a device before. It wasn't a full development kit, but it would allow any member of the public to purchase one via mail order and start creating games. The Official PlayStation Magazine guide would regularly feature demos that had been created by Net Yaroze enthusiasts. A few of them were made into commercial PlayStation games and one game, Time Slip, was even updated and released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2012.

This kind of console manufacturer interaction with the enthusiast developer community was not repeated with PlayStation 2 or PlayStation 3 by Sony, or the Xbox or Xbox 360 by Microsoft. While they offer indie developer programs, they were often relegated to deep menu sections and poorly publicized over their more elaborately produced arcade games.

By the time these later consoles were established, the cost of games' development had sky-rocketed, a result of the complexity needed in modern games and the graphical detail could now be displayed. For example, Grand Theft Auto IV which was released on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC had over 150 developers working on it and cost more than $100,000,000 to produce. A far cry from the one man teams of the late 1970s and early 1980s.